Completed in October 2004, the Barons Place residential development is the ‘prototype’ for a modular prefabricated construction system to provide key worker housing for London.

 

Developed with manufacturer Spaceover, the Peabody Trust and Keep London Working, the design delivers ‘short term’ accommodation for nurses, teachers, the fire service and the police.

 

Barons Place comprises three one-bedroom and three two-bedroom flats made up of 15 modules, over three stories.

 

The prefabricated/pre-finished modules are a steel frame construction. They are fabricated and fitted out in a factory, assembled on site over two days, with construction completed in fourteen weeks.

 

 

Modules are stacked in a simple configuration with entry stair and access balconies located on the south facing façade. This provides maximum solar shading to the lightweight construction and creates a secure point of entry within the site.

The principle street façade is animated by large window areas to all apartments complete with highly coloured, glazed balustrades to 'Juliet' balconies and protective canopies, which provide drama and rhythm to the townscape along Webber Street. The simple lightweight rain screen cladding of fibre cement panels with coloured textured surface is configured in a way which subverts the potentially inherent repetitious nature of modular construction.

Because all the services, including cisterns, controls and connections are housed outside the main body of the flat, the interiors are uncluttered and feel spacious, despite their compact size.

 

www.proctorandmatthews.com